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The Brown University women’s ice hockey team, the country’s first intercollegiate program in the sport and known affectionately in its early years as the Pembroke Pandas, owes its existence to the tenacity and ingenuity of its first women skaters. Forced to hold practices at inconvenient hours and to borrow equipment from intramural supplies, the Pandas sold hockey rule sheets at men’s games to raise funds for sticks, pucks, and shinguards. In their first season (1965-66), the Pembrokers, clad in uniforms of wheat-colored jeans and blue shirts, suffered two hard-fought losses to the Walpole Brooms, a women’s community group team. Unfazed, they overcame inexperience and injuries to finally beat their archrivals 2-1 the following year.
Indeed, the inspiration behind the nickname “Pandas” is an appropriate expression of the team’s spirited history. The editorial staff of the Brown Daily Herald chose the name after the women icers lost their first-season rematch against the Brooms in front of 300 rowdy spectators at Meehan Auditorium. Recognizing the potential fan-drawing appeal of a team nickname, the Herald staff searched for a mascot that was simultaneously associated with bears and not “too masculine.” Although not brown and not even a bear, the panda nevertheless resembled Brown’s revered bruin and was also “cute.” Moreover, “Pembroke Pandas”
possessed a catchy alliterative quality that reporters liked. The team was promptly christened, and the Pembroke skaters pledged to “fulfill the promise seen by the BDH editorial staff and live up to the high standards of performance set by a name like ‘The Pandas.’”
When current head coach and 1983 Cornell graduate Margaret Degidio “Digit” Murphy arrived at Brown in 1990, the team name was changed to the Bears at her insistence, and newspapers gradually abandoned references to the beloved Panda. Yet, the 20 brave women who were the first Pandas will always cling to their original mascot, as will the countless fans who remember their legacy. In nearly 35 years, their accomplishments included five Ivy League championships, the first ECAC tournament title for an Ivy team, back-to-back appearances in the American Women’s College Hockey Alliance national championship weekend, and four Olympians, including a pair of gold medalists from the American contingent at the 1998 Olympic Winter Games in Nagano.
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